West Virginia
Department of
Education—
Office of
School Finance
Office of School
Finance News
V o l u m e
Inside This
Issue:
1 ,
I s s u e
Musical
Chairs—Staff
Changes
•
Ed Jobs contact for questions
OSF staff have been on the
move lately and the music is
still playing.
•
Revision in
Process—
Accounting
Manual for the
Schools
•
CSBO Authorization—Get your
hours here
•
OSF Google
Site—handy
reference
In July, Joe Panetta was
named Assistant State Superintendent of Schools in
the Student Support Services Division. He oversees
Child Nutrition, Student
Transportation, School Facilities, Internal Operations and
School Finance.
OPEB Update
•
New Look for
the Sign-In Sheet
•
Revision Made
to Chart of Accounts
O c t o b e r
2 0 1 0
Musical Chairs
•
•
1
In September, Susan Smith
was selected as the Executive Director in the Office of
School Finance. She has
served 13 years as a coordinator in that office and has
two years’ experience in
public accounting.
A new coordinator will be
hired to fill Susan’s vacant
chair within the next few
weeks.
cer-Wyoming. The new coordinator will serve as the initial contact for counties
Barbour—McDowell. RESAs
and MCVCs use the contact
person for their fiscal agent
county.
When you need to reach the
Office of School Finance,
please call Susan or Misty
anytime.
You can contact the OSF via
email, too. You can find
Susan at
Misty Price is also making a
move—when the new coordinator comes on board, Misty
will become the initial contact person for counties Mer-
susmith@access.k12.wv.us
or Misty at
mistyprice@access.k12.wv.us.
Email is checked nearly
24/7.
Changes Ahead for the Accounting
Procedures Manual for Individual Schools
OSF will be revising the Accounting Procedures Manual
for the Individual Schools
this year.
The current manual, State
Board Policy 1224.1, was
made effective in August,
1996.
The revision will clarify existing language and address
new issues. One meeting
has already been held with a
committee of chief school
business officials and repre-
sentatives of school district
auditors.
Please contact Susan at
susmith@access.k12.wv.us
with your comments and
suggestions.
CSBO Authorization—Get Your 15 Hours
Here!
Page 2
Many Chief School Business Officials are required
to renew their CSBO authorization annually
through the Office of Professional Preparation.
State Board Policy 5202
details the requirements
for that authorization.
It states, in part, that the
applicant must “complete
15 clock hours annually of
in-service credit offered by
the licensing agency; AND
receive the recommendation of the county superintendent in the county in
which the applicant is or
was employed”.
The 15 hours required for
licensure can only be obtained by attending continuing education offered
by the Office of School
Finance. The renewal for
FY 11 is based on the con-
tinuing education hours
earned during FY 10.
Sessions qualifying for
credit under this policy
during this year’s Fall
ASBO conference are:
Dealing With the Press, FY
12 Budget Instructions,
New Vendor Set-Up Procedures, and FLSA Refresher.
Contact Susan with your
questions.
New Sign-In Sheet Format
“hours for CSBO
authorization are
In order to make tracking
of the continuing education hours simpler, the
sign-in sheet format has
been revised.
different from
hours qualifying
for CPE credit
under the WV
When attending professional development offered by OSF, you will find
a sheet pre-printed with
each CSBOs name. Initial
Board of
Accountancy for
certified public
accountants”
next to your name in the
box for the session you are
attending.
Keep in mind that hours
for CSBO authorization are
different from hours qualifying for CPE credit under
the WV Board of Accountancy for certified public
accountants.
ASBO handles CPE credit
for CPAs at their conferences. OSF will have CPE
certificates separate from
the sign-in sheet at their
events which qualify for
credit.
Contact Susan or Jennifer
Hupp with your questions.
New Chart of Accounts
Recent changes made to
the Chart of Accounts have
been incorporated into a
new edition, effective October 1, 2010.
The complete new edition
is available on the WVDE
website’s School Finance
O ff ice
of
School
Fin an ce
Ne ws
page at http://
wvde.state.wv.us/finance/
under “Manuals”.
A Summary of Revisions
will be discussed at the
Fall ASBO Conference and
is available on the OSF
Google Site (see back
cover for the article).
Please review the account
codes to be sure you are
using only valid codes.
Contact Susan or Misty
with your questions regarding account codes.
Vol u me
1 ,
Issue
Page 3
1
Questions Regarding Ed Jobs Funding
There have been many questions lately regarding the Education Jobs Funding through
the American Investment and
Recovery Act.
funds: 52Y2X. Use revenue
source code 04533 and account for this project in Fund
71 just like the other ARRA
funding.
Joe Panetta, Assistant State
Superintendent of Schools, is
the go-to guy for answers regarding all ARRA funding, including Ed Jobs funds.
County boards must expend
the funds only for salaries and
benefits.
Personnel employed using
these funds must be reported
on the certified list as funding
source 3—federal.
A substantial portion of the
funds must be expended during the 2010-11 year.
A specific project code has
been created to track the
Direct your questions to Joe
Panetta at 304-558-2691.
For FY 12
budgets,
include only
the amounts
for OPEB that
the board
OPEB Update
For FY 12 budgets, include
only the amounts for OPEB
that the board plans to actually remit to the Retiree Health
Benefit Trust Fund. That
would include the pay-as-yougo portion, but may not include
any amounts beyond that.
Each county will determine the
plans to
actually remit
amount remitted for OPEB
(beyond the pay-as-you-go portion) and whether or not federal programs are charged.
The PEIA website does not
show the annual required contribution (ARC) for FY 12 at this
time. OSF will notify the
county boards when the infor-
mation is made available.
The lawsuit brought by the
majority of county boards was
recently dismissed. It is sure
to be a topic of discussion during the upcoming legislative
session.
Thank You!
The annual financial statements were due on September
28, 2010. We have received
financial statements from 38
of the county boards of education , all 7 MCVCs and 7 of the
8 RESAs.
Thank you for submitting your
reporting package on time!
OSF has performed an initial
review of the certified personnel lists which were due on
October 8. While there are still
some lists which contain true
errors that must be corrected,
the number of these instances
is greatly reduced from previous years.
Thanks to CSBOs, personnel directors and others
who worked very hard
this year to not only meet
a significantly tighter
deadline, but to also submit accurate lists.
to the Retiree
Health Benefit
Trust Fund.
WVDE
Office of School Finance
Building 6, Room 215
1900 Kanawha Boulevard, East
Charleston, West Virginia 25305
Phone: 304-558-6300
Fax: 304-558-8867
E-mail:
Susan Smith, Executive Director
susmith@access.k12.wv.us
The Office of School Finance calculates and
distributes legislative funding to the WV
school districts, provides guidance for the
preparation of school district annual financial statements, promulgates rules concerning school finance issues, delivers professional development and assists school district finance officers with countless questions each year.
Don’t Forget to Google
Are you looking for a document
that was emailed to you weeks
ago and is now buried somewhere deep within your inbox
folders? Try the OSF Google
Site.
“Workshops” page where all the
handouts from OSF workshops
can be located. The handouts
for OSF sessions at Fall ASBO
2010 are already loaded on the
site.
The URL is https://
sites.google.com/site/
wvdeofficeofschoolfinancedata/
There is a how-to video on creating Google forms on the OSF
Google site. Click on “How-To
Videos” in the box on the lefthand side of the screen.
A video showing how to share
documents using Google is also
available there.
The site contains data from fiscal years 09, 10, and 11 and
includes state aid schedules,
indirect cost rates, budgets, salary schedules and school calendars.
Audit closing letters, blank forms
and checklists are also stored
on the site. There is a
CSBO list serv) for information
that you want to compile.
Direct your questions regarding
the OSF Google site to Susan or
Misty.
Don’t forget that Google Documents is handy for situations
when you ask a group (like our